A Novel Direct Tensile Test Method for Mortar and Its Experimental Validation

Abstract

Ronald Okoth*, Venus Mungesa, Bill Teddy and Stephen Mutuli

Tensile strength is a crucial property of mortar that needs to be addressed in order to withstand temperature stresses, flexure, shear, and shrinkage. Indirect tensile strength measurements are provided by currently available techniques such as split test but they does not provide high accuracy. More precise clamping and alignment are necessary for direct mortar tensile tests due to their complex setup. In order to ensure accuracy and simplicity, this study presents an improved mortar direct tensile strength test. Indirect tensile tests, as recommended by ASTM, are used to compare the results. Epoxy adhesive and prefabricated steel rigs were used to improve specimen alignment and clamping in the uniaxial direct tensile test. Before the tests were conducted, the specimens were cured in water for 28 days at a temperature of 24°C and a humidity level of over 95%. Under uniaxial tension, all examined specimens exhibited nonlinear elastic behavior, as there were no distinct transition from elastic to plastic deformation before failure, a phenomenon also observed in cement paste and mortar with a water-cement ratio of 0.5 by S. Carmona et al in their study. The developed direct tensile test method was effective in guaranteeing that each mortar specimen fractured in the middle as expected when direct tensile test is carried out on a specimen. These findings demonstrated that the strength of a mortar could be accurately determined using the direct test suggested in our study. The study is meant to improve the reliability of the Tensile tests done for mortar mixtures used in construction industries and to acertain the accuaracy of the results obtained from these tests.

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